Page 68 of Ominous: Part 1
He settles back in his recliner, same color as the couch I’m on across from him in the little living room. It’s freezing in here, and I’m thankful. The TV above the mantel of the fireplace—which doesn’t work—is on, but muted. I glance at the screen and see a car race.
I think of Eli.
I try very, very hardnotto think of Eli.
Talking about boys with my dad has never been an issue because we’ve never really talked about much of anything. When him and Mom split when I was in preschool, he moved here, an hour outside of Raleigh, and very occasionally, he’d jet up in his sports car of the season and whisk me away for an outing on the beach. Mainly, he’d readCar and Drivermagazines while drinking from little bottles of Mountain Dew, and I’d jump the waves alone, but it was fun, because Mom worked a lot, and we didn’t get out to the ocean as much as I’d have liked as a kid.
Now, he rarely leaves his house.
I glance around at the low ceiling, the rickety kitchen table with one single chair where it could fit at least four, the hallway which I know leads to a guest bathroom that always smells faintly of mildew.
The whole house has that smell, actually, but hey, at least Dad has a new motorcycle parked along the burnt lawn to show all of his neighbors. He was standing beside it like a proud father when I pulled up. Ironic, yes, but when you work at a used car lot, you steal perks where you can, I guess.
“How’s writing going?” Dad asks this like I’ve been working on the next great American novel.
“Well, just trying to get through the semester first.” I wonder for a moment if he remembers I go to a fancy new private school. I almost don’t want to talk about it, but I see his dull blue eyes light up as recognition sparks.
He says, “That’s right, you’re at Trafalgar now, huh?” He pronounces it all wrong, but it’s endearing. It reminds me of my roots. Where I belong. Which is…not at Trafalgar.
I press my knees to the outside of my hands, glancing down at my ripped jeans, platform boots that took all weekend to dry after Dominic’s party. Unfortunate, because they’re the only black pair of shoes I own, so I had to wear them to school.
I spritzed them with a lavender essential oil concoction Eli thrust into my hands this morning after I told him about my dilemma while he walked me to English.
It’s on my faded green dresser back in my room.
“Yep,” I tell Dad, slipping into my own Southern accent. I usually try to talk around it, as if it’s a ball of bitter candy lolling around my tongue, but here, I suck on it, wincing as I hear myself speaking out loud.
“Anyone giving you any trouble?” Dad schools his features into something resembling concern at the same time he tugs on the hem of his oversized blackStar Warsshirt, crumbs from the crackers he ate spilling down his chest, landing on his blue jeans.
I glance at the plastic wrapper from his snack, on the TV tray beside the arm of his chair. There’s an empty two liter of Mountain Dew holding it down, as if a stray breeze might blow it away. Based on the crumbs and wrappers littering the floor in the kitchen beyond the living room, cracker packages close to the white trash can but notquite there,it seems cleanliness is not on Dad’s menu.
I repeat his question in my head. Oh, right. People giving me trouble.
A feeling of annoyance settles in my chest.
Would you care if they were?I have to force myself to bite the words back.Where’ve you been, Dad? When Mom was scraping money together for a car, and you were sitting on an entire lot of them, where the fuck have you been? Sebastian is in trouble, Reece is the same asshole he always was, and where the fuck have you been?
He used to ask me about Reece. Wanted to make sure he was “treating me right.” I don’t think he’d have done anything at all if Reece wasn’t.
I stare into his face, still molded into an almost earnest expression of giving a fuck. The line between his brows has deepened, his brown hair is edged with gray, thinning a little at the crown.
His arms used to be lined with muscle, now they’re softer, and so is he, generally speaking.
“Nope.” I see dark green eyes in my head. I feel an arm draped over my chest. I freeze, staring at an unfamiliar ceiling, the memory on a loop. Then the soothing words that were in my mind, waking up in a bed not mine.
It’s just Eli.
It’s just Eli.
I see him watch me take my things to his bathroom to get ready for work. He watches me as I lie to Mom too, through texts about Janelle’s house, when I’m in his passenger seat, holding two waffles squished together, cashew butter between them and a hint of jam. I protested, but Eli made me compromise because I’d already shrugged off his offer of eggs.
“I’m a vegan.”
He smiles, shadows beneath his eyes. “Break the rules for me.”
I think about the cocaine, lying to my mom, sleeping in his bed, all as we walk to his car. “What the fuck do you think I’ve been doing?”
He rolls his eyes, but his smile stays. I eat all of the waffles.
